20 Tips to Prepare Your Mind for Meditation #Mindfulness

If you are like me, you really really want to meditate but a/fall asleep b/can’t focus c/feel too lazy d/think it won’t help for a particular situation.

But the truth is, meditation helps for practically everything. And it is not complicated. Simply stepping away from a stressful situation and taking a few deep breaths is good enough.

Here is a one-minute meditation practice you’ll enjoy.

Interestingly, when we do sit to meditate, and get ready to focus on our breathing and blank our minds, that is precisely when we end up overthinking. Maybe it is because we’ve made the time and space: the mind takes off on its own train of thought—thinking, reflecting, planning, worrying, remembering, forgetting, reacting, telling its stories—and remains hyperactive. And it takes a little time to quiet the mind.

Here are four wonderful books to guide you.

For those of you struggling to mediate, here are 20 tips to prepare your mind and make it ready to meditate.

20 tips to prepare your mind for meditation

1. Real mediation is how we live our lives.
2. To live life fully, be present for it.
3. To be present, consciously bring awareness to your moments or you may miss most of them.
4. Bring awareness by paying attention with intention to the present moment, without judgment for whatever is happening within you or around you
5. This means being kind to yourself because you deserve it.
6. Keep in mind that good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, the present moment is the only moment we are alive and so, it is the only time to learn, grow, see what is going on, find balance, feel and express emotions like love and appreciation and do what we must do to take care of ourselves. We must express our inherent strength, beauty and wisdom even when we are in pain or suffering.
7. A gentle love affair with the present moment is important
8. The love affair is by learning to rest in awareness of what is happening inside and outside us, moment by moment—by being rather than doing
9. Pick a meditation practice through which you can ground, deepen and accelerate this process. Make some time on a daily basis—maybe wake up 20 minutes earlier than usual to make that time for you.
10. Remember we bring awareness to our moments only as best as we can.
11. We are not trying to achieve anything here—just realizing that this moment is very special because you are awake and alive in it.
12. Mediation is hard, but it is worth it.
13. It takes a lot of practice.
14. Plenty of practice
15. Fortunately, there are lots of moments and each one can be treated as a new beginning.
16. If we miss some, there are new moments.
17. We do all this with lots of self-compassion.
18. Point to remember: we are not our thoughts or opinions, our likes or dislikes. They are like weather patterns in our mind to be aware of—clouds moving across the sky. So, don’t be imprisoned by them.
19. Making friends with yourself through mediation is the adventure of a life time and very empowering.
20. When you try it for a few weeks, it grows on you and becomes a habit.

Mull over these tips. Let them soak into your consciousness before you settle down to meditate. I like to think of them as a sort of guided lead-in to my meditation practice. Gentle rules.

Do you enjoy meditation?

How do you prepare your mind?